The Participation Blog

I Can Explain It To You But I Can’t Understand It For You

The title above is one of those cute, arrogant bumper sticker quips that people sometimes wish they could say to a difficult person they’re dealing with. Dumbing it down is a term that you hear from a lot of professionals describing the same basic process of reluctantly simplifying something complex for a non-professional audience. It’s different words but the same sentiment. This condescending attitude is part of the problem and not knowing the subject well enough to communicate to their audience is the other.